Between here and there city fumes sift through wild meadows
planted on Piccadilly’s bus stop overhang. Nature recycles.
Manchester’s mizzle baptises the morning. Still ‘anging, coatless,
the weekend alchy steams station-wards, meeting his connection.
Planted on Piccadilly’s bus stop overhang, nature recycles
intoxicated fantasies. Living statues, comatose on spice, dream on.
The weekend alchy steams station-wards meeting his connection.
Caffeine-high commuters dance round the fetid world at their feet—
intoxicated fantasies. Living statues comatose on spice, dream on,
crossing the Styx to requiems of pop piped from hotel lobbies.
Caffeine-high commuters dance round the fetid world at their feet
as rumbling traffic drowns the hushing waves of trembling grasses.
Crossing the Styx to requiems of pop piped from hotel lobbies
Manchester’s mizzled viaticum shrouds the junkie casting off.
Rumbling traffic drowns the hushing waves of trembling grasses
between here and there. City fumes sift through wild meadows.
~ after Baudelaire’s “The Harmony of Evening”
item #15325
title: harmonies of morning
form: pantoum
index: karen barton
note for the curator:
spice is a synthetic drug producing zombie-like effects/manchester is the UK’s spice capital //
‘anging (hanging) is a colloquialism denoting intoxication.
Karen Barton is a neurodiverse poet studying The History of Art with Creative Writing BA at the Open University, Milton Keynes. She lives in Wiltshire, UK, close to Stonehenge and her non-poetic occupations have included being a magician’s assistant and dancer. She is the founder and co-editor of Matryoshka Poetry, and has been published in The Curly Mind, Word Gathering, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Alyss, The Fem Lit’, Thank You For Swallowing, and The Goose.
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